Levi Goode, owner and CEO of Goode Company Restaurants, has been working in the family-run business, which turns 35 this year, since he was a child.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Staff

Levi Goode, owner and CEO of Goode Company Restaurants, has been...

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Levi Goode, owner and CEO of Goode Company Restaurants, is photographed in the original barbeque store along Kirby Drive on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, in Houston. This year marks the 35th anniversary of Goode Company. ( Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle )

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Staff

Levi Goode, owner and CEO of Goode Company Restaurants, is...

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Levi Goode, owner and CEO of Goode Company Restaurants, is photographed at the Goode's Armadillo Palace which is across the street from the original Goode Co. Barbeque restaurant along Kirby Drive on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, in Houston. This year marks the 35th anniversary of Goode Company. ( Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle )

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Staff

Levi Goode, owner and CEO of Goode Company Restaurants, is...

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Armadillo Palace, a live music venue and chicken-fried steak restaurant, opened in 2005 across from the original restaurant.

The calligraphy for the original Goode Company logo created by Jim Goode, a commercial graphic artist and backyard barbecue aficionado who founded Goode Company Barbecue.

Photo: Goode Company

The calligraphy for the original Goode Company logo created by Jim...

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The calligraphy for the original Goode Company logo created by Jim Goode, a commercial graphic artist and backyard-barbecue aficionado.

Photo: Goode Company

The calligraphy for the original Goode Company logo created by Jim...

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Jim Goode, right, with his "horn truck."

Photo: Goode Company

Jim Goode, right, with his "horn truck."

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Levi Goode, left, and Jim Goode at Armadillo Palace, 5015 Kirby Drive, an old west style saloon that will open soon and will feature live music shown on Friday, Feb. 25, 2005. (Melissa Phillip/Chronicle) HOUCHRON CAPTION (02/26/2005) SECBIZ COLORFRONT: GOODE TIMES: Levi Goode, left, and Jim Goode created the Armadillo Palace after the Barbeque Hall of Flame gift shop flamed out. Levi Goode is Jim Goode's son and partner.

Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff Photographer

Levi Goode, left, and Jim Goode at Armadillo Palace, 5015 Kirby...

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A photograph of Jim Goode, original founder Goode Co., is on display in the original restaurants along Kirby Drive on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, in Houston. This year marks the 35th anniversary of Goode Company.

4/28/04--Mesquite wood is stacked in front of Goode Co. Bar-B-Q on Kirby. Goode Company uses the wood for cooking. Despite some openions that Barbecue restaurants help to pollute the air, Houston does not rank in the top 25 cities in the country for the type of pollutants that wood burning fireplaces would cause. Photo by Steve Campbell

A cowboy in a 10-gallon hat will always get noticed in Manhattan. And when a group of Houston chefs descended on Gotham for a food event several years ago, Levi Goode twisted more than a few heads.

"There he was in $10,000 boots, hat, pearl-snap shirt, striding down the street," Reef chef Bryan Caswell said, recalling his favorite image of his Texas-proud friend. "He was bigger than life. Bigger than Dallas. Ready to rock."

Caswell, who goes way back with Goode, said Houston couldn't have a better culinary ambassador than the man whose family name is synonymous with Texas food and Bayou City hospitality. Goode Company, which grew from a small family barbecue barn, is now a Houston restaurant powerhouse with four concepts spread over seven stores. Their barbecue, which made the family famous, is now a thriving e-commerce business. Goode pecan pies are shipped around the world, taking with them sweet slices of Texan culinary diplomacy wherever they land. The Goode name, in short, has been good for Houston.

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Goode Company through the years

And Levi Goode stands at the center, cowboy hat and all. The only son of company founder Jim Goode, he is the gentleman proprietor of one of Houston's most iconic businesses, which this year marks its 35th year. The yearlong celebration of all things Goode reaches its pinnacle Saturday with a blowout invitation-only celebration at Goode's Armadillo Palace.

It will be a night on which he will have every right to puff out his chest a bit, threatening to snap those pearl buttons. But Levi Goode, 38, who took on the CEO mantle when his father retired seven years ago, doesn't brag about himself. He is the first to give credit to hardworking employees who labor to make his restaurant brands shine; to his family for understanding the long hours he puts into work; and to his parents, especially his father, who taught him the business he now proudly stewards.

In the beginning

Back in the 1970s, Jim Goode was an avid backyard-barbecue enthusiast. "He had a lot of people patting him on the back and telling him he should open his own place," his son said.

He got that chance when the owner of a failing barbecue joint on Kirby, the Red Barn, agreed to sell the store for $6,000. "The lady," apparently eager to leave the business, Levi said, "threw my father the keys and said, 'It's yours.' "

The Goodes called family and friends to help clean up the place, and it opened the Tuesday after Labor Day 1977. The original partners were Jim and his wife Liz, an elementary schoolteacher, and Jim's uncle, Joe Dixie. Levi calls his father's gamble an "all-in kind of deal - sink or swim. My father had no restaurant background."

His background was as a commercial graphic artist, and he created the original Goode Company logo, a swooping, gorgeous calligraphic throwback. What Jim lacked in restaurant experience he more than compensated for in gumption. He and Uncle Joe slept at the store watching the pit - they'd take turns, one sleeping inside, the other outside with a shotgun to protect the equipment. And the brisket.

Growing up Goode

The early days of Goode Company were thrilling for the young Levi, who grew up in the business along with his sister, Jana, and used to pitch in by washing dishes standing on a milk crate.

In 1982, when the oil business was in decline, Jim purchased real estate across the street, opening Goode Co. Taqueria in 1983, establishing a central commissary on Westpark and opening Goode Co. Seafood in 1986. Armadillo Palace, the live-music venue and chicken-fried-steak restaurant, opened in 2005.

The offshoots of the original barbecue restaurant were culinary legacies drawn from family history. Jim's mother, an immigrant from Mexico, inspired the taqueria. The widely beloved pecan pie is her recipe. The seafood restaurant owes its roots to the Texas Gulf Coast, along which Jim Goode was raised by a father who took his five children to local beaches where they fished, crabbed and played in the surf.

"There's a cultural family heritage that's represented in all our restaurants," Levi said. "We do Texan food. That's the soul of our brand."

The brand thrived, even if Jim and Liz's marriage didn't. They divorced in the early '80s and Liz left the business.

Levi learned the business by his father's side. Although he attended Texas A&M to study agricultural economics, he left in his third year to pursue his interest in food, earning a culinary degree with the Art Institute of Houston.

"Chef's school teaches you the fundamentals. It gave me a sense of well-roundedness in the kitchen by studying classical French techniques. Just being able to learn the foundations gave me a different perspective and viewpoint about how unique Texas is and how we cook food in Houston," he said. "It gave me a higher level of appreciation - of the Gulf, of the farms, of all the diverse cultures here."

But he is the first to say that his greatest education came from his father.

"My father is my biggest mentor," Levi said. "I learned a lot of lessons of life being around him. All the good things I took away? Priceless."

Big as Texas

There would be no Goode Company were it not for Jim Goode, the man whose vision and aesthetic are evident throughout the company. Often described as a larger-than-life personality with his big cowboy hat, bigger beard and big-as-Texas bearing, Jim Goode left enormous shoes to fill when he retired.

Teresa Byrne-Dodge, editor of My Table magazine, who has chronicled the Houston restaurant scene for decades, said Houstonians have the utmost respect for Jim Goode and the brand he created. Earlier this month My Table's Houston Culinary Awards gave its Houston Legend award, which recognizes Houston culinary icons, to Jim Goode.

"When you go into one of their restaurants, you feel like every detail has been thought through. Today that's pretty common, but in the '70s and '80s, it was not. That was Jim," Byrne-Dodge said. "Other places would have diluted their brand by now. I really respect they haven't."

Jim Goode, 68, could not make the event, where a proclamation from Mayor Annise Parker also declared Oct. 7 as Jim Goode Day. His family declined to comment on his health.

Levi Goode accepted the award for his father. "It was a huge recognition," he said, clearly touched by the tribute.

Promoting Texas

Unlike other successful Houston restaurant clans - the Mandolas and the Pappas families come to mind - Levi doesn't have backup. He's running the empire by himself. "With Levi, it's just Levi," Byrne-Dodge said. "It's a lot of work when you have four concepts to run."

But it's that work that Levi Goode says gets him out of bed each day.

"I've got a very gratifying job. I'm a driven person by nature," he said. "But to get up and come to work every day knowing that I'm somewhat a curator of our little piece of Texas culture and in a position to borrow from my experiences to grow that, it's really gratifying."

Perhaps that's why when Foodways Texas began in 2010 with a mission to celebrate and preserve uniquely Texan food culture, the fifth-generation Texan became a founding member and was quickly tapped to serve on its board of directors.

"His sense of history really fits our organization because he's already been preserving things for years," executive director Marvin Bendele said. "There's a reason he's running (Goode Company). He's definitely not an in-your-face 'this is how it should be done' person. He's very diplomatic and very easy to work with. I know if I need something all I have to do is call Levi."

Goode is one of those people who gets things done, who innovates as he's doing it, and never wants the credit when it's finished, his friends say. Michael Berry, radio talk-show host and former Houston city councilman, calls Goode a "connector" who revels in making introductions and bringing people together. "In a crowd, he's the superstar. But he's also the guy taking care of everyone," said Berry, who has been friends with Goode for 15 years. "He's a superstar and a legend, but you have to remind him he's a big deal."

Goode can be the life of the party, but he's an extremely modest man, Berry adds. "He's led an Ernest Hemingway life. He might be the most interesting person you'll ever meet, but he'll never brag on it," he said. "It's just the way he is."

And like his father, he's a perfectionist. "Levi is never satisfied with where things are. He's always trying to improve - to improve and innovate," said friend Morgan Weber, owner of Revival Market. "His mind is always in it."

Passing the torch

Levi and Kelly Goode have three children - Mason, 8; Reese, 5; and Vivian, 4.

"Of course, I'd love to see one of the third generation continue on with the legacy of our family business," said the man who as a boy cracked pecans for the family pies and hustled beers out to customers. "That said, the business was never forced upon me. It was something I had to prove myself and gain the respect of my family and the long-standing people who tended our business. It wasn't easy. They'd have to take the same path - to learn it, to bring something to the table, to be in a position to add value."

Goode is building a bigger company for his children, should they become part of the business. After the central commissary on Westpark is relocated next year, the existing structure will be replaced by a parking garage for Goode Co. Seafood and the Taqueria. The new commissary, twice the size of original, will produce prepared foods for an expanding mail-order business and serve as a test kitchen for new menu items and concepts.

Will Goode Company ever expand out of Houston?

"We get approached all the time. What's important to us is maintaining quality. It's not just a restaurant, it's a legacy and family tradition. It's important that it remains and improves over time," Goode said, adding that he does see more restaurants in the company's future and perhaps even a new concept.

"We are in a situation right now where we have a lot of great talent with us in the business," he said of the company that now employs 450. "We have quite a bit going on. But it's a lot of fun."

And a lot of work. Still, Levi said he can see his father's hand in all facets of the business. It's a comfort. It's also a very high bar.

"My father said, 'All you can do is what's in your control and try your damnedest to put your best foot forward.' "